News Grover Mouton named to the Board of ICOMOS
Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture Grover E. Mouton, III has been named to the Board of US/ICOMOS, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which is an international non-governmental organization of professionals, dedicated to the conservation of the world’s historic monuments and sites.
Mouton joins a distinguished group of professionals from around the nation and the world. They will advise and assist the ICOMOS organization, which strives to bring together conservation specialists from all over the world and serve as a forum for professional dialogue and exchange.
The organization disseminates information on conservation principles, techniques and policies, cooperates with national and international bodies to help establish conservation-oriented documentation centers, and works towards the adoption of international conventions on the conservation and enhancement of architectural heritage. ICOMOS also organizes training programs for conservation specialists on an international scale.
Mouton cites his appointment as “one of the highest honors of my career,” and recognizes the importance of the work before him, particularly “as a representative of New Orleans, a city of unmatched historic architectural fabric.”
Mouton and the Tulane Regional Urban Design Center also served as hosts to the recent US/ICOMOS national conference, held here in New Orleans. He organized and hosted a tour to the historic Evergreen Plantation while TRUDC associates Nick Jenisch and Robert Bracken hosted the Young Professionals Evening.
Conference keynote speaker Tong Mingkang is Director of ICOMOS China, and has met with Mouton in Beijing in the interest of setting up a collaborative center for preservation in partnership with the American Planning Association (APA), with whom the TRUDC has worked on more than 10 major urban design projects across China.
“This opportunity will allow me to extend my knowledge of preservation in urbanism to an audience beyond the southern US and China,” Mouton noted.
Though working primarily as an urban designer, Mouton has led a number of preservation efforts throughout his career. He served as chairman for the Shadows on the Teche garden restoration, a National Trust for Historic Preservation property in New Iberia, LA. He was also appointed to the National Trust Board, Center for Historic Houses, in Washington, DC.
Mouton developed a master plan for the Civil Rights District in Birmingham, AL which received a National Trust Honor Award. His downtown master plan for Monroe, LA was selected for a LA State Honor Award. He has served on the board of the Preservation Resource Center and has recently been named to the Pilgrimage Garden Club in Natchez, MS, which established a base for cultural tourism in the 1930’s and has become a national model. He is currently aiding the garden club with the restoration of Stanton Hall and Longwood, the two antebellum homes owned by the club.
The TRUDC has obtained Preserve America designations for Slidell & Mandeville, LA, along with Natchez, MS and East Hampton, NY. The Center will host the first Preserve America Mayors’ Conference on Heritage Tourism in 2009.
Mouton has developed urban design and cultural tourism recommendations in sensitive environments across China, including historic hutong street and neighborhood preservation in Beijing, a new town development that allowed the preservation of old Zhenjiang, and preservation of a Ming Dynasty garden and neighborhood within the city walls of China’s former capital, Nanjing.
03.26.09
